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Sarah Kaufman thinks she's being treated differently than every other Strikeforce champion. She's right.

She thinks there's a double standard that's keeping her pay low and her fights on the lesser-watched Challengers series events. She's right.

She thinks – if I may paraphrase her position – that this is some unfair, possibly sexist crap. Again, she's right.

And yet, I can't help feeling like we already knew this. Just like I can't help feeling that we're all at least partially to blame for it.

Just a couple of days before her title defense on Friday night's Strikeforce: Challengers event, unbeaten Strikeforce 135-pound champ Sarah Kaufman's mind was on "cookies and man parts."

Those seemed like the only two things, Kaufman (11-0) wrote in a blog entry on PrettyToughFighter.com, that would get her off the Friday night Challengers shows and onto a main Strikeforce card.

"I am currently the Strikeforce Women's Welterweight Champion...yet I fought for the title on a Challengers Card. Now, I am set to defend said title against Roxanne Modafferi in just a few days – again – on a Challengers Card," Kaufman wrote.

Nine months ago, Strikeforce was coming off the biggest fight in the history of women's mixed martial arts history, Cris Cyborg's first-round TKO win over Gina Carano. That fight not only made Cyborg the undisputed toughest woman in the sport, but it also made Strikeforce the undisputed top promotion in women's MMA.

But since then Strikeforce hasn't built its women's division as much as it could have. Cyborg has only fought once, Carano hasn't fought at all, and the handful of other women's fights Strikeforce has televised have included mismatches (like Kerry Vera whipping Kim Couture) and snoozers (Sarah Kaufman beating Takayo Hashi).

However, while Strikeforce is stagnating, a couple of other promotions are surging in the women's MMA world. Bellator has signed Rosi Sexton and Megumi Fuji for its upcoming 115-pound tournament, and Moosin put on a good fight between Roxanne Modafferi and Tara LaRosa. All four of those women are on my list of the Top 10 pound-for-pound fighters in the sport, which is below.

In retrospect, it was probably a poor choice of words.

"Sometimes these things happen in MMA," said CBS play-by-play man Gus Johnson.

By "these things," he apparently meant post-fight brawls like the one that had just erupted in the cage following Strikeforce's main event bout between Jake Shields and Dan Henderson. If only Johnson had left off the "in MMA" part, or better yet, not tried to dismiss a complete breakdown of good sense with a flippant remark that suggested we were looking at people who weren't responsible for their own actions, maybe it wouldn't have seemed so bad.

As it was, there were likely many viewers checking out MMA on CBS for the first or second or even third time who saw the melee, heard that remark, and decided that yes, this kind of thing does just happen sometimes in this crazy sport.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Scott Coker covered a lot of ground when he spoke to MMA Fighting at Thursday's Strikeforce: Nashville press conference. The Strikeforce CEO talked about Fedor Emelianenko and Gina Carano's future in the organization, bringing Shinya Aoki to the United States, Mike Whitehead's recent arrest and much more.

Check out the video interview below.

When Sarah Kaufman and Takayo Hashi step into the cage at Friday night's Strikeforce Challengers card on Showtime, it will mark the second time that Strikeforce has given the main event to the ladies on a card otherwise made up of male fighters.

The first time -- Gina Carano vs. Cris Cyborg in August -- it felt like a big deal. This time it just feels like the logical fit, as the Kaufman vs. Hashi 135-pound title fight is the best bout on the card. And in a strange way, the fact that Kaufman vs. Hashi isn't such a big deal might be a sign that women's MMA has moved from novelty to widely accepted athletic competition.

The last time I posted rankings of the Top 10 pound-for-pound fighters in women's MMA, I noted how hard it is to identify the truly elite female fighters in the sport, and I asked MMAFighting.com readers for their input.

I got a lot of good suggestions of good fighters after that, and I've seen a lot of good women's fights since then, including Cris Cyborg vs. Marloes Coenen in person and a whole bunch of fights on YouTube. After all that, I think I have a much-improved list of the Top 10 pound-for-pound fighters in women's MMA below.

To watch mixed martial arts now, to witness the slick productions, screaming fans and dynamic fighters, it's hard to believe how far and how fast the sport has come in a single decade.

"If you would've come to me in 1999, and said there's going to be this new sport emerging, and by 2009 it's going to be where it is right now, I would have told you that would be an extremely unlikely and impressive achievement," said Robert Thompson, a noted pop culture expert and professor of Television and Popular Culture at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University.

As metaphors go, the one that describes the state of MMA as the '00s began is almost too perfect to believe. Because as the calendar turned the page to the year 2000, the sport lay injured and ignored in a Louisiana hospital bed, a victim of its own hand.

Little has been heard from Gina Carano since her loss to Cris Cyborg in August, and Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker doesn't expect to see her back in action before mid-2010.

Coker said on this week's edition of The MMA Hour that Carano, who is set to begin filming the new Steven Soderbergh movie, Knockout, in early 2010, isn't in Strikeforce's immediate plans.

On this week's edition of The MMA Hour, we were joined by Dan Hardy, who faces Mike Swick in a No. 1 contender's match at UFC 105 on Nov. 14. Hardy talked about getting a shot to fight for the title early in his UFC career, MMA's popularity in the United Kingdom, and his recent criticism of Bernard Hopkins after the boxing legend blasted MMA.

Later in the show, we spoke to Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker about the upcoming Fedor Emelianenko vs. Brett Rogers bout on Nov. 7, the Dan Henderson sweepstakes, and when we should expect to see Gina Carano return to action. Ray Hui and I also looked back at UFC 104 and Brock Lesnar having to pull out of his title fight at UFC 106.

Watch or listen to the show below.

ESPN The Magazine's "Body Issue" is making headlines all across the sports world, and two of the biggest stars in mixed martial arts are a part of it. Gina Carano's cover photo will certainly raise a lot of eyebrows for obvious reasons, and the close up of Randy Couture's cauliflower ear will definitely force some to look away. In many ways, the photos feature visual evidence of the pros and cons of training MMA, if you know what I mean.

The inaugural issue hits newsstands on Friday, but remember, Carano's cover is one of six, so don't be disappointed when you find Serena Williams in the buff gracing the cover of the magazine at your local book store. Anyhow, enjoy an early look at the Carano and Couture photos after the jump.

Gina Carano and Randy Couture will be among the 30 male and female professional athletes posing nude or semi-nude in ESPN The Magazine's first "Body Issue," which hits newsstands on Oct. 9.

Couture's cauliflower ear will be the focus of his spread and Carano will be posing semi-nude in "The Bodies We Want" photo section.